I think during atla, toph maybe started out (sorry) less skilled than bumi, but inventing metalbending almost certainly put her at or very near his peak level at a young age. Introduced during the second season of the series, toph quickly became a pivotal player in the show. They at first wanted a big buff dude to be a foil to sokka.

Toph Original by SophiaHeartwell on DeviantArt

Other earthbenders used the hung gar style of kung fu. Although she was blind, the brash and talented earthbender. Read original design from the story toph beifong wikia by aangandkorrafever324 (erika of woods beyond) with 60 reads.toph was originally.

Web toph's original design in avatar:

In the dvd commentary they did say that this version of toph, the teenaged burly earthbender, was going to constantly be a foil to sokka's masculinity. However, the creators thought it'd be funny to have a little girl defeating older, buff earthbenders instead. Toph was also portrayed by an adult actor of the opposite gender, a deliberate riff on the earthbender's original design. The last airbender character might surprise you. When the ember island players put on their stage biography of avatar aang (with team avatar watching), toph is portrayed as pretty close to her original design. They just made him a girl. Toph beats him in five seconds flat. Toph was an earthbending master by the time she was twelve, having mastered the basics of standardized earthbending and expanding off of that to form her own unique style that.